Phases
by MarinersRevenge
Summary: She had rooted herself so firmly that by the time the world crashed around his ears she was the only thing left.


Oof it has been a hot minute since I last updated or wrote anything. hello to everyone who has stumbled across my page! I'm glad that people seem to enjoy my stories and I hope this year I can actually sit down for longer than 2 minutes and bring you some more of my musings.

As always Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.

* * *

I. Odi

He remembers the first time he saw her.

Brown unruly hair and tan skin.

Freckles and wide brown eyes.

A book between her tiny hands clutched firmly to her chest.

A shield.

He remembers thinking that maybe he should introduce himself.

Maybe he could ask her to sit with him and his friends on the train.

Maybe…

The train whistle calls them to board and he loses sight of her in the crush.

It wasn't until later that he learns of her true origins.

Disgust and self loathing burn hot in his belly as he realizes what he almost did.

He will never make that mistake again.

II. Amo

He almost remembers when his feelings became… more?

Is more the right term in which to explain what he thinks of her?

They had been paired in a class.

In most of their classes, actually.

He found out that they both shared a voracious appetite for knowledge and he wasn't sure if he liked that shared trait.

Some last ditch attempt by the staff at unity but that sentiment had died long ago.

He wondered if at some point the staff understood that they were desecrating a corpse but simply did not care.

He remembers muttering that sentiment to himself and was surprised to hear a laugh.

He can't remember anything else about that class or project.

But what he does remember is a quiet laugh and a quick upturn of lips.

Sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks.

That night he stared at his bruised hands.

Bruises like ink spilling over his pale skin.

Dark and stagnant and he thinks of her.

He curls his hand into a fist and finally drives a hole through the top of his trunk.

He wakes in the morning to bloody fingerprints on his sheets and his skin.

When he sees her again, he wonders if she can see the stain she left on him.

III. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?

He couldn't remember a time when he didn't see.

He saw her.

He saw everything.

And it made him want to claw his eyes out.

He had buried himself deep in the ground.

In courses.

In others.

But all he saw was her.

Her in the sunshine.

Her in the library.

Her.

If anyone were to ask...

IV. Nescio

"What do you think of her?"

[unsent letter] ...I have hated and killed you a thousand times and yet you still remain. Have I finally succumbed to the madness of my mother's line? I wish that was the case. I wish I had never seen you on that platform...

[torn piece of parchment] You have left a mark on my soul and I can feel it clawing its way through my lungs.

"I don't know."

[a whisper in the cold night, cold bloody fingers tracing x's over his heart, scent of perfume all wrong all wrong lingering in the air] I am yours...

V. Sed fierei sentio et…

She had rooted herself so firmly that by the time the world crashed around his ears she was the only thing left.

In the early hours before the horrors woke from their slumber, he finally thinks of her.

He had feared that just the thought of her would break him.

Shatter him into a thousand pieces and then those pieces would continue to break until there was nothing left of him but dust.

He tries to remember her scent and the way the light bends around her.

He tries to remember her laugh and her smile.

The only thing he remembers is her eyes.

Later it is her screams, her blood, her tears that will haunt him for his cowardice.

Her memory is tainted now.

VI. Excrucior

It was over.

Finally over.

And he watched as she jumped into the arms of another and kissed him.

He knew then that fate had a cruel sense of humor.

VII. Vivamus...

Time and distance.

That's what his healer had said.

So he took the train as far as it went and settled.

His mother wrote to him often.

He avoided the newspapers.

If asked he would say it was because he didn't want to see any articles about him.

Death Eater scum turned Hero.

In a way it was partially true.

Mostly he did not want to see her.

Two years passed before he saw her again.

She was standing outside the gate of his cottage.

He stares at her through the gaps in his blinds.

[Is she here for him?]

She still pulls at him.

He still thinks of her in the night.

His memories and dreams of her have lost their frenzied edge.

Softened by time and perspective.

He sees her now.

He sees all of her.

[whispered breath in the cold air: I am still yours. If you'll have me. I am yours.]

He makes a decision.

And opens the door.

* * *

Ōdī et amō. Quārē id faciam fortasse requīris.  
Nesciō, sed fierī sentiō et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.  
I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.

— Catullus 85

Vivamus tranlates to "Let us live"


End file.
